Australia's Telstra Reaches 222,000 Broadband Users

In its semi-annual financial report, Telstra reported 222,000 broadband subscribers, double the number from the same period last year. Telstra expects to have one million broadband subscribers in 2005. On the wholesale front, Telstra said industry demand for DSL is lifting. Over time, Telstra expects that its wholesale DSL business may have more customers than its retail offering. Meanwhile, during the past six months Telstra's narrowband subscribers increased 7% to more than 1.1 million. On the regulatory front, Telstra said it was relieved that debate concerning structural separation of its operations is now off the agenda. A separate government inquiry is continuing this year looking at the capacity of the telecommunications network to deliver adequate services to all Australians.
http://www.telstra.com.au

• As of the end of 2002, Optus, the Australian division of SingTel, reported 85,000 cable modem customers and 464,000 dial-up Internet customers.

Read More

Enterasys Networks Reaches SEC Settlement

Enterasys Networks reached a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The settlement does not require any further adjustment to the Company's historical financial statements and does not impose any civil penalties or fines. Pursuant to the settlement, Enterasys, without admitting or denying any allegations, agreed to a cease and desist order requiring future compliance with the federal securities laws and regulations, and to appoint an internal auditor reporting directly to the Audit Committee of Enterasys' Board of Directors. Also, Enterasys Networks announced that it expects revenue for the fourth quarter ended December 28, 2002 to show continued stability in a range approximating $120 million, and that it has achieved its goal of break-even operating cash flow in the fourth quarter, ending the fiscal year with approximately $305 million of cash and marketable securities.
http://www.enterasys.com

Read More

Lucent Reaches Settlement with SEC

Lucent reached an agreement in principle with the staff of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to settle all matters currently under investigation. Without admitting or denying any wrongdoing and without paying any fines or penalties, Lucent said it would consent to a settlement enjoining the company from future violations of the anti-fraud, reporting, books and records and internal control provisions of the federal securities laws.
http://www.lucent.com

Read More

Marvell Reports 11% Sequential Jump in Revenues to $150.8 million

Marvell Technology Group reported record quarterly revenue of $150.8 million, an increase of 82% over net revenue of $82.8 million and an 11% increase over the previous quarter. Net loss (GAAP), including acquisition-related expenses and special charges, was $24.2 million, or $0.20 per share. The company said it has expanded its market share in wireless LAN, enterprise and desktop switching as well as Gigabit Ethernet, including transceivers, NIC and motherboard LAN solutions.
http://www.marvell.com

Read More

Vendors Establish Tunable Laser Multi-Source Agreement

Several optical suppliers announced a Multi-Source Agreement (MSA) for tunable lasers based on the Optical Internetworking Forum's implementation agreement. Participating companies include iolon, Intel, Bookham Technology and Santur Corp.
http://www.tunablelasermsa.com

• Earlier this month, Bandwidth9, a start-up based in Fremont, California, suspended its operations due to “limited revenue potential for tunable transmitters in the foreseeable future

Read More

Siemens Mobile Acceleration Plans Early Stage Investment in Wireless Start-ups

Siemens Mobile Acceleration, a wholly owned subsidiary of Siemens AG, opened an office in San Jose, California with the goal of providing early-stage investment capital in wireless start-ups. In addition to venture capital, portfolio companies would also benefit from Siemens' sales and marketing channels. Siemens said similar efforts in Europe and Asia have generated impressive results.
http://www.siemens.com/mobile-acceleration

Read More

ADVA Adds 8-channel CWDM to FSP 500 Platform

ADVA Optical Networking announced a number of enhancements for its Fiber Service Platform (FSP) 500 product, including an ITU-compliant 8-channel Coarse Wavelength Division Multiplexing (CWDM) module, a 2.5 Gbps service card, and a Single Fiber Working (SFW) solution. ADVA already offered a 4- channel CWDM module for the FSP 500. The new 2.5 Gbps card is designed to transport SONET/SDH and clear channel STM16/OC-48 services. ADVA said it has shipped approximately 10,000 FSP 500 units since introducing the platform in 2000. Major customers include BellSouth and British Telecom.
http://www.advaoptical.com

Read More

Thompson Advances its TV-over-ADSL Activities

Nextream, a joint venture between Alcatel and Thomson, has developed a real-time MPEG2 encoder that enables the low bit-rate compression required to broadcast TV content over ADSL. Thompson said the encoder reduces the bandwidth requirement to less than 2.5 Mbps for picture quality equivalent to satellite services. A satellite version (DVB-S) of this encoder is already in use by numerous broadcast operators. Thompson has also developed a set-top box that allows TV program reception over ADSL networks. The Thompson equipment is being tested by the TF1 group project, code named "Dream TV," which provides 24 TV channels over ADSL to 200 households in Paris. Thompson is also participating with Alcatel in a Video on Demand (VOD) over ADSL project by Monaco Telecom.
http://www.thomson.net

Read More

Lucent Offers CDMA2000 Base station to Extend Life of Existing CDMA Equipment

Lucent Technologies introduced a new CDMA2000 base station growth cabinet designed for mobile operators that currently have existing Lucent AUTOPLEX Series II cellular base stations. It preserves their investment in the AUTOPLEX systems by enabling them to reuse much of the equipment - including antennas, filters and amplifiers - while increasing capacity by up to three times. Lucent said the new Flexent CDMA High Density (HD) 4.0 system would also be able to support intelligent antenna technology as it becomes available.
http://www.lucent.com/

Read More

Intel Signs Marriott as a Co-Marketing Partner for Wi-Fi

Marriott and Intel are planning a joint marketing campaign to promote the availability of wireless high-speed Internet access at 400 Marriott, Renaissance, Courtyard, Residence Inn, TownePlace Suites, Fairfield Inn and SpringHill Suites hotels in the U.S., the U.K., Germany and Canada. Plans include advertising, direct mail and prominent signage to identify the hotspots. Intel said it is planning co-marketing agreements with various companies in preparation for the launch of its Centrino mobile technology. Its aim is "to verify wireless compatibility and drive awareness of hot spots and wireless technologies that will change how and where people compute."http://www.intel.com

Read More

BT Wins Five Year Contract with Honeywell

BT was awarded a new five-year outsourcing contract to manage and deliver communications and networking services to 220 Honeywell sites throughout Western Europe. The contract covers voice communications, PBX management, LAN infrastructure and management, mobile and video communications and Internet access. BT will also manage Honeywell's WAN, migrating the WAN from Frame-Relay/ATM to an IP VPN.
http://www.btignite.com

Read More

CERN Selects Alcatel 7770 for IP Core

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, will deploy the Alcatel 7770 IP Core Router for a trans-Atlantic multi-vendor testbed called DataTAG. The equipment will be used for the IP core of DataTAG's Grid, whose main centers are in CERN's Internet Exchange in Geneva and the Starlight Internet Exchange in Chicago. The network will support the research of more than 6,500 scientists, representing about half of the world's particle physicists. Financial terms were not disclosed.
http://www.alcatel.comOther announced deployments of the Alcatel 7770 include:

• BELNET, the Belgian national research network for education, research and public communications services



• The Poznañ Supercomputing and Networking Center (PSNC) in Poland



• Project ATRIUM and GÉANT, the European-wide research networks sponsored by the EC

Read More

Telefónica Reaches 1.4 M ADSL Subscribers, Writes Down EURO 16.2 Billion

Telefónica announced financial write-downs totaling EUR 16.2 billion for 2002 largely related to its 3G operations in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy, as well as for operations in Mexico and Argentina. Telefónica's operating revenues for 2002 were EUR 28.4 billion, down 8.5% from the previous year. Telefónica de España contributed the most to the company's overall revenues (EUR 10.3 billion) followed by its cellular business (EUR 9.4 billion)

• Telefónica's worldwide customer base at the end of 2002 was 84.7 million, up 15% from a year earlier.




• Telefónica had 1.4 million ADSL customers at the end of 2002, up by 850,000 customers from the previous year.




• Telefónica's net debt totaled EUR 22.5 billion at the end of 2002, a decline of EUR 6.4 billion from the year earlier. Most of the reduction was provided by operating cash flow generated by the company.




• Telefónica CAPEX spending for 2002 was EUR 3.789 billion, down 52% from the previous year.

http://www.telefonica.es

Read More

Comcast Claims Early Integration Success, Subscriber Loss Slows

After 100 days of operating as a combined company, Comcast claimed significant progress in integrating the networks, slowing subscriber losses and addressing its $30.5 billion debt burden. The company attributed an improved outlook to its ability to stop subscriber losses to direct satellite TV and to growth in digital cable and cable modem services. Comcast is forecasting zero customer loss (net) for 2003, compared with a net loss of 412,000 customers in 2002. Cable modem subscribers are expected to increase to 5 million this year, compared to 3.6 million at the end of 2002. However, Comcast expects its circuit-switched cable phone business to slow or decline in 2003. Some other highlights of the Comcast quarterly update:

• Proforma cable revenues for Q4 were $4.152 billion, an increase of 11.0% from the $3.740 billion for 2001. Pro forma operating income (EBITDA) for the quarter was $1.047 billion, an 8.9% increase over the $962 million for the same period of 2001.




• Video revenues increased 4.5% over the prior year quarter to $2.882 billion, reflecting the impact of continuing strong demand for Digital Cable, offset by subscriber losses in the newly acquired AT&T Broadband cable systems. During Q4 Comcast lost 9,100 cable subscribers, reflecting growth in Comcast's historical cable systems of 40,600 subscribers (a twelve-month trailing growth rate of 0.8%) offset by a loss of 49,700 subscribers in the newly acquired AT&T systems. Comcast had 21.305 million cable subscribers at year-end 2002, a pro forma twelve-month trailing loss of 1.9%. The figure includes 6.6 million Digital Cable subscribers, an increase of 29% year-over-year for digital service. By year-end 2003, nearly 50% of Comcast customers will have access to VOD and HDTV.




• High-speed Internet service revenue increased 67% over the prior year quarter to $434 million, as a result of a 50% increase in the customer base and an 11.1% increase in average revenue per subscriber. The company ended 2002 with 3.6 million high-speed Internet subscribers, a pro forma increase of nearly 50% over year-end 2001, and representing a 12% penetration rate. Comcast is adding on average 28,200 cable modem subscribers per week. The service is currently available in 75% of the Comcast footprint.




• Cable phone revenue totaled $225 million, a 36% increase from Q4 2001 reflecting significant unit growth. The company ended the year with 1,438,000 cable phone subscribers, up by 393,000 subscribers. However, Comcast said it would now focus on the economics of the service rather than unit growth. For 2003, Comcast forecasts that the number of cable phone subscribers will remain flat or decline by up to 150,000. The company said it would retain its current cable telephony footprint but would not expand it to other regions. For markets currently offering cable telephony, Comcast plans to reduce its marketing. As for its longer term strategy, Comcast said telephony would remain "on-hold" for the next 18 months or so while it works on VoIP. The current VoIP deployment in Philadelphia will go ahead.




• Advertising revenue increased 15% over the prior year quarter to $297 million.




• For its financial outlook, Comcast predicted 2003 EBITDA of $6.2 to $6.3 billion, which represents a growth rate substantially above the 20% growth rate the company had previously anticipated and above the $4.9 billion generated prior to acquisition related costs in 2002. The company forecasts having approximately $25-26 billion in debt at the end of 2003, down from $30.5 billion. Employee headcount is expected to be 34,900 at year-end, down from 40,000 when the acquisition closed in November 2002.




• Comcast will cut its CAPEX spending to $4 billion in 2003, as compared to the previously issued guidance of $4.2 to $4.5 billion. In addition to $1.2 billion earmarked for cable plant upgrades, Comcast plans to spend $1.39 billion for customer premise equipment, $440 million in infrastructure equipment, $340 million for line extensions, $1.3 billion in other upgrades/rebuilds, and $530 million for support systems. Comcast expects 90% of the newly acquired AT&T systems will be upgraded to deliver two-way digital and high-speed Internet services by year-end.

http://www.comcast.com

Read More